


Fate Unchained

by murderlight



Category: Bleach
Genre: Afterlife, Amnesia, Angst, Human!Grimmjow, Humour, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-06-25 18:45:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15646725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murderlight/pseuds/murderlight
Summary: After Inoue's powers splinter out of control, Ichigo is given a second chance at a first impression with Grimmjow--and is forced to make a choice he never asked for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [trevo4folhas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trevo4folhas/gifts).



> this is most definitely for and because of trevo, [who drew the amazing comic that partners (and inspired) this fic](https://murderlight.tumblr.com/post/176870614346/batemeuma-murderlight-is-completely-to-blame) to be the length it is.

_I’ve done something terrible._

_Look for him by the river road._

_Kurosaki-kun, I’m so sorry. I never thought it could work._

As if he didn’t dread the riverside road enough, Ichigo thought as he thumbed down Inoue’s text, squinting at the words like they might have a secret meaning. Inoue was given to occasionally overreacting to some of the most inconsequential mistakes. A hundred yen said it was just Kon duct-taped to a telephone pole for getting too handsy. Maybe she’d tried to feed Chad some of her new recipes and he was throwing up in the gutter. Whatever it was, she hadn’t replied to his questions and his calls had gone to voicemail, which really left him one option: swing past the river on his nightly hollow patrol and see what all the fuss was about.

At least it was a nice night, Ichigo told himself, enjoying the warm breeze that tugged at his hair and the loose sleeves of his shihakushou. A little cloudy, but not enough to hide the white glare of the moon. Everything was lit in shades of blue and black where the golden streetlights gave way to the moonlight. As he approached the river road, the scent of blacktop and oil gave way to flowering weeds and muddy water. His stomach clenched like a fist at the memories that came with the smell. At least it wasn’t raining.

Ignoring the dark water to his right, keeping to the roadside, Ichigo looked around for anything out of place in the area.

Tree, tree, telephone pole, road barrier, nothing. A slight crack in the concrete embankment he walked alongside. An empty bag of cheese crackers blowing against some bushes. Ichigo walked the road up and down in confusion. Maybe he’d taken too long.

He was just starting to turn back when he heard the tell-tale musical clink of chain links in motion. It was faint and coming from far up ahead, but it held the familiar sound of a shinigami’s work.

Well, at least it wouldn’t be a total loss. Nothing like a konsou and a grateful human soul passing on to ensure the night wasn’t a complete bust. Ichigo picked up his pace.

It was a guy, facing away from him. He had a tall, lean build, if maybe a sullen slant to his shoulders. His turned back showed a worn leather jacket, ripped denim jeans and dull, black leather boots. His hair was pale under the moonlight. Blond, Ichigo thought, surprised. Some kind of gang member, maybe. Well, whatever. Dead was dead, and even potential yakuza deserved to pass on before they got eaten by hollows. Who even knew how long the poor bastard had been wandering around alone for?

“Hey,” Ichigo called quietly, reaching out a hand at the same time to touch the plus’ shoulder. He tried for his most compassionate and understanding look. Sometimes all the recently dead wanted was to hear a friendly voice—

Startled at the touch, the guy spun around.

Ichigo’s world dropped away.

“You can see me?” asked the guy wearing Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez’s face. Only it couldn’t be, because this—this was a human—

_I never thought it could work._

_Look for him by the river road._

The realisation hit Ichigo like a landslide. Inoue’s powers had never been completely tested, had they? The power to reject time, space, events that fate should have long set in stone. Something had happened. Something she’d never meant to do. Someone she hadn’t meant to change.

Ichigo was looking at Grimmjow’s human soul, before he ever became a hollow, an arrancar, an espada.

“Who are you?” the guy asked, blinking through the blood pouring over his forehead and into his eyes.

Before he ever knew Ichigo’s name.

“I’m—” _breathe, breathe, it’s not his fault,_ “I’m a shinigami substitute. Kurosaki Ichigo. It’s my job to help wayward souls pass on.” He couldn’t help how wooden and scripted his words sounded. His mouth felt numb. All he could do was stare at the person in front of him and pray he wasn’t telegraphing every hopeless thought he was having across his face.

It really was Grimmjow. Different clothes, no mask, hair the colour of wheat, but it was him. Even with his expression broken open with dumb wonder, face flickering with confusion in a way Ichigo had never seen before, it was him. The same blue eyes, missing the estigma that gave them the illusion of a catlike tilt. Same hairstyle, artfully disheveled and hanging over his brow. The cut of his jaw, the slope of his nose, all the same. A thug, he looked like. Trouble. Ordinary, safe human trouble, looking like he’d just gotten into a street fight. A bar fight.

Except there was dull metal bolted into the centre of his chest, and a broken chain hung from its anchor.

Dead.

Grimmjow was a plus, a human soul that hadn’t passed on.

Wayward.

And Ichigo was a shinigami. Bile crawled up the back of his throat.

“So there’s people like you out there, huh? S’pose it makes sense. Thought it was strange that I was alone, but if you’re here cleaning up the ghosts, then…what? Is it the blood?” Grimmjow pointed at the wound on his head, misinterpreting Ichigo’s stare. “Pissed off the wrong people, didn’t I. Shit you do when you’re drunk, right? Now look at me. Order of the perpetually fuckin’ hemorrhaging.” He hissed an annoyed breath through his teeth. “I need a drink. They have tequila in hell?”

“Hell?”

“Yeah, you know. The underworld. Hades. The great big basement prison. Brimstone and shit. Hell.” When Ichigo just blinked at him, Grimmjow started forward and clasped a hand to either side of his face. His hands were cold. From six inches away, Grimmjow’s eyes filled up the whole world. “Are you okay, shinigami? You’re lookin’ a bit punchy to me. Come lean on this wall for a bit.” Taking him by the shoulders, Grimmjow steered him over to the concrete embankment that lined the roadside, propping him against it like he didn’t trust him not to crumble. Ichigo appreciated it desperately.

“I’m not feeling real good tonight, sorry,” Ichigo said after a few moments, staring blankly out at the river. The moonlight was a rippling white smear on its surface. Beside him, Grimmjow just grunted.

“Shit happens. You got any cigarettes in that uniform?”

“No.” Ichigo frowned slightly. “You smoke?”

“When I’ve got the money for it.” An arm jolted down around his shoulders, rough and companionable. “Living’s a damn expensive business, shinigami. Not that you’d know, I guess.”

Grimmjow thought he was a ghost, or a god. Of course he had no idea Ichigo was human, almost twenty and staring down the barrel of his worst nightmare. It had been more than a year since he’d last seen Grimmjow but he’d always known he’d appear in front of him one day, demanding his fight, forcing his hand somehow. Had he come to do that when he found Inoue? Had she refused him somehow, or had she just tried to reject his presence right there in front of her? Who the hell knew—her power made no fucking sense, and it wasn’t about to start right there on the roadside with his old self-proclaimed enemy, who had no idea they’d ever met before.

What was his name? Surely _Grimmjow_ had come afterwards, a name given to the hollow he’d become. He should ask.

Ichigo didn’t want to ask. If he did, Grimmjow really would be dead and gone. He grit his teeth as the arm around his shoulders jostled him slightly, trying to get his attention.

“Feels good to be able to touch someone.” The words were thoughtful, and a little melancholy. “This ghost shit is tough. You can hate life and hate people and hate yourself, but waking up in the middle of the road and nobody can see or touch you? What’s hell got on that fuckin’ nightmare?” He clicked his tongue in irritation. “Before you came all I had was this piece of shit chain for company, eating itself and nearly makin’ me throw up. Hurt like a son of a bitch.”

Ichigo went rigid. The world came spinning back.

“The links are being devoured already? How many? Let me see.” Shrugging his arm off, Ichigo pressed Grimmjow back against the wall and parted his jacket, getting a good look at the chain protruding from his torn and bloodstained t-shirt. Picking up the last link of the chain, he tried desperately to remember how many he’d been left with before trouble happened. The last stretch was the fastest, the most agonising—and it was usually when the mask manifested, pouring out of the mouth and eyes like thick, wet cement. He had six links left on his chain. That wasn’t many. That wasn’t enough.

“Am I gonna live, doc?” Grimmjow teased, snorting at Ichigo’s sudden pallor. “C’mon, it doesn’t hurt that bad—”

“Don’t joke about this,” Ichigo said sharply, dropping the chain. “The longer you sit in despair and regret, all that anger and stuff? It eats away at the chain. Once it’s gone, so’s your heart—and then you turn into a hollow.”

 _Would that be so bad,_ a traitorous voice in the darkest corner of his mind whispered knowingly. A little rage, a little loneliness, a thirst to become stronger, to win…the ingredients that made Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez an arrancar. Ichigo felt sick, and sicker still that he listened. To distract himself, to muffle it, he told Grimmjow exactly what awaited the restless dead.

“That’s why it’s my job to send you on,” Ichigo finished some minutes later, nodding to himself like the expert he hoped he sounded like.

Scratching at his hairline, sending small flakes of drying blood raining down on his shirt, Grimmjow levelled him an unimpressed look.

“Maybe you don’t grasp the situation,” he said, flicking his fingertips to get rid of the bloody detritus caught under his nails. “If you push me into the light, it’s gonna turn into a big damn slide into the bonfire downstairs.” Crossing his arms over his chest, Grimmjow tipped his head back against the wall. “Think I’ll take my chances with the demon shit. Points for trying, though. Nice to know some idiot out there has high hopes for me.”

“You’re a decent guy,” Ichigo insisted. “If you haven’t murdered anyone, if you haven’t hurt others in sheer cruelty during your life—”

“Who says I haven’t?” Pushing Ichigo back with a hand flat on his chest, fingertips cold in the dip of his collarbone, Grimmjow narrowed his eyes. “You think you know me? Talking like some fuckin’ fairy godmother, acting like you’ve got any idea the shitheap my life has been? Here’s a hint, shinigami: good guys don’t bleed out alone in the street from two gunshots and a fucking bat to the head.” Yanking his jacket back off his shoulder, further than Ichigo had pushed it, two blooms of dark red clustered over his right lung. A round hole punched through the t-shirt in each place. Grimmjow’s face was stony, rebellious—and miserable. “People like me don’t get the pearly gates.”

Ichigo’s shoulders slumped. It felt like all his hopes and dreams slumped along with them.

“They’re not that pearly. Kind of wooden, actually.” He returned to his position against the wall. When a cold leather-clad arm immediately slung over his shoulders again, he sighed. In total defeat, reached around Grimmjow’s waist with his closest arm and held on. The human that used to be Grimmjow might not remember him, but he seemed to like him well enough. He couldn’t even pretend that had been the case in the past.

“It can’t be all bad, being a mindless hungry beast,” Grimmjow said after a while, looking down at Ichigo. Even human, he lorded a few inches over him. “No loved ones to eat because I don’t have any. I’ll forget who I was—big tick in the plus column there. Less wind resistance with a massive hole in my chest, so I’ll be able to run faster.” When Ichigo didn’t immediately respond, fingers tugged on the shell of his ear. “C’mon, I’m tryin’ to make you laugh here. Cheer up. You can’t save everyone.”

“You can’t want to become a hollow just because you’re scared you might go to hell. Hueco Mundo is basically purgatory for shitty people.”

“Then I’ll be right at home.” There was no room for argument in his tone, but Ichigo persisted anyway.

“But don’t you owe it to yourself to try?”

“Why do you want me to?”

Ichigo shut his eyes briefly. “Forgetting for an instant that it’s literally my job to slice you in half if you turn, I honestly think there’s some kind of honour in you.” His shoulders held up under the hard gaze drilling down onto him. “Call me an idiot if you want, but I have a hard time believing that you— _you_ _,_ with your human heart and your weird hair and the way you instantly made friends with me—would do the kind of things that would get a soul condemned to hell. I think you’ve got a chance.”

Tense all over, heart thumping with the resolve it took to actually say something so stupidly naive and hopeful to someone like him, Ichigo set his jaw stubbornly and glared right out at that cursed fucking river like his life depended on it. It was for that exact reason he didn’t see the cold hand coming until it landed on his head like a vice, turning it until Grimmjow could kiss him hard on the mouth. His lips were cold. All of him was cold, really, but it didn’t stop Ichigo from feeling a thrill of amazement as Grimmjow’s lips moved over his.

When he pulled away, the eyes that rested on Ichigo’s were almost black.

“Still think I’m not hell-bound? Still want to save my soul, shinigami?”

Ichigo tried to string the words into something that made sense with what just happened. He kept coming up empty. Did Grimmjow think he was some kind of homophobe?

“If you’re trying to scare me off, that’s never going to work,” Ichigo told him. “But if you want to escalate you can try to prove me wrong.”

Blue eyes widened for an instant, then slowly narrowed in interest. Grimmjow settled back, running the pad of his thumb across his own lower lip. All the while, blood kept spilling over his forehead, through his eye and down his cheek. The flow couldn’t kill him, Ichigo knew that, but it would also never stop until he’d passed on. He was bait for any hollow in the area, right up until he would become one. And Ichigo couldn’t bring himself to watch it unfold. They were at a stalemate. It figured that no matter what form he came in, whatever incarnation he appeared before Ichigo as, he’d be a fucking pain in the ass.

“What if I just stayed here with you?” Grimmjow asked abruptly. “Chain stops eating itself because I’m not despairing anymore, obviously, and you kill any of these hollows that try to eat this delicious piece of rawhide.” The look he slanted Ichigo was wry. “I’d let you be my sidekick.”

“Pass,” Ichigo said immediately, but he had to bite down a grin. It didn’t go unnoticed.

“C’mon, think about it: Kurosaki Ichigo, shinigami extraordinaire and his brilliant and benevolent master, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez. It’s got a real ring to it.”

Ichigo went still.

He was sure he’d heard correctly. But—

“That’s your name?”

“Only one I go by these days,” was the easy reply. A hand darted out and grabbed his, shaking it hard. “Now we’ve officially met.”

“…yeah,” Ichigo said, looking down at the hand clamped around his own. Every time he thought he found his footing, the rug was yanked out from under him again. He had no idea a single conversation could be such a rollercoaster.

Grimmjow had kept his name from his human days. The entire time, he’d only ever been one person. Ichigo was no expert on hollows, really, but even he knew that the willpower to retain that much sense of self was borderline impossible. But he’d done it. And—hell, Ichigo couldn’t even be that surprised, when he really thought about it. Of course Grimmjow would be that stubborn. He had the kind of spirit that could come out the other side of anything life threw at him. When it didn’t come in the form of two bullets and a bat, anyway. And he wanted to stay. With Ichigo.

_because I’m not despairing anymore, obviously_

Ichigo huffed a small laugh, then another. His eyes stung. What kind of second chance at a first impression…

“It was really great to meet you, Grimmjow,” Ichigo told him, keeping his blue gaze and that crooked half-smile turned toward him. “Here’s to next time.” He hefted his sword.

The konsou seal was bright gold in the centre of Grimmjow’s forehead, stilling the bloody rush running over the skin beside it. The ground beneath them flared brilliant with light, blinding with it, until it turned the blue eyes staring at it almost white with its radiance. Ichigo knew it only took a moment to work. He stood there wretched and happy in the sinking golden light of the purification, fists clenched as Grimmjow’s expression faded from stark betrayal to dawning wonder.

“What the fuck,” he whispered, darting Ichigo a disbelieving look as the light started to dissolve his form.

“Guess you’re not going to hell after all,” Ichigo said, trying for smugness. His chest hurt. “Have a nice afterlife.”

“Not bad, shinigami,” he said, glancing between the light and Ichigo’s face. “Hey, you think they have barbecue over there? Cause I am absolutely fuckin’ starvi—”

Of all the final words to pick at that exact moment, Ichigo thought blankly as the light consumed Grimmjow, vanishing his spirit form into so much sparkling light and memories. Couldn’t have picked anything uplifting or inspirational for Ichigo to remember him by. He wondered if the districts of Soul Society would bend to his will the way everything else had. The brief idea that Inoue could undo her freak accident passed through his mind, but it was pure self-indulgence. The pendulum didn’t swing both ways for her powers. Not inside her own rules, or whatever. Done was done. He tried to be angry about it, but—hadn’t he done right by Grimmjow?

He had. He knew he had. No more hatred, no more bitterness and scrambling to the top of the food chain. The afterlife he should have gotten. A chance at reincarnation someday; a do-over to try again. Maybe Ichigo would even find him by chance one day.

Doubtful, he knew. He’d be an old man by the time Grimmjow was ever born into the world again. And in the hundreds of thousands of people scattered all over Soul Society, he just didn’t have a chance of ever seeing him there. Maybe it was for the best. Grimmjow didn’t need some moping shinigami who still hoped for the good old days, following him around like a kicked mutt looking for scraps. He had a clean start.

It was better this way.

Yeah.

Ichigo was halfway to dawdling home, shoulders sagging and steps dragging when he stopped dead, his heart suddenly pounding beneath his ribs.

Grimmjow had been _hungry._

Grabbing his phone out with shaking hands, he opened a new text message to the only other person he could trust.

_grimmjow got turned back into a human soul and i just sent him to soul society and he was HUNGRY for fuck’s sake urahara he’s gonna be a shinigami isn’t he what the fuck have i done_

The reply was immediate.

 **[Sandal-Hat]:** _Keeping life interesting as usual, I see. I’ll take care of it. Do you have any objections to me profiting from the bidding war that is about to explode amongst the Gotei 13 for Grimmjow’s eventual place on their squad?_

Ichigo blinked at his phone.

 _Just put me down as his emergency contact,_ he typed out carefully, and stared at the message with his thumb hovering over the button. It didn’t look wrong. Ichigo hit send and pocketed the phone before he could follow it up with anything further. His heart couldn’t seem to calm down. All the flowers and river water in the world couldn’t drag him down from the adrenaline high he was on just then.

Ichigo had thought he was saying goodbye forever. He really had.

It figured that Grimmjow would sink his claws in one way or another, whether he knew it or not.

“Here we go again.”


	2. Chapter 2

Ichigo stared at the door for a long time, wondering if he should knock or just walk away.

It was a pretty standard front door. Sturdy and heavy, probably fire coded. Scuffed along the bottom from furniture moved in and out over the years. Some scratches in the glossy cream paint.

An apartment door like any other. Except this one belonged to Inoue Orihime, and knocking on it was Ichigo’s last resort.

It had taken him two weeks to stand in the hallway like that. At first he told himself she was just upset with herself, or that maybe she was afraid of his reaction. But his curious texts went unanswered. So did his worried ones. Finally, there was nothing left to do but track down her new address and turn up in person.

The hallway smelled faintly like damp carpet. The door was solid and white. Lifting his fist, Ichigo knocked firmly with three sharp raps of his knuckles.

For one long, silent moment, he stood there waiting. There was a faint rustle from the other side of the door. Then, nothing.

“Inoue,” Ichigo said quietly.

With a muted clack and tumble of the locks, the handle turned and the door slowly opened. Ichigo’s eyes widened.

Inoue was barely recognisable. Standing in baggy sweatpants and a stained grey t-shirt, her copper hair unbrushed and hanging in lank strands around her face, she looked like a bad impostor of the usually upbeat and energetic girl he’d called a friend for the last five years. Shadows sat beneath her eyes like smears of ash, and her skin had a pallid cast to it that said she was on the brink of exhaustion. But the most alarming thing was the scabbed-over scratches on her temples: like something had clawed at them and left red trenches behind.

“Inoue,” Ichigo repeated, his stomach dropping like a stone. “What—” Before he could continue her hand shot out to grab his, unfurling his fingers and dropping something cold in the centre of his palm.

“I need you,” she said, staring up at him in quiet desperation, “to take these as far away from me as you can get.”

Ichigo stared into his hand. The twin blue flowers of her shun shun rikka stared back. When he looked back, he saw her eyes were spilling silent tears of pure fatigue and fear. With a small, shuddering sigh, Inoue stepped back and tried to close her door. Ichigo jammed his foot in it before he could even think of what he wanted to do.

“It’s okay,” he said mindlessly, a little scared himself. “I’ll make it okay. We can—”

“A power that trespasses into god’s territory,” she said, too-loud and unsteady. The door swung open when he pushed gently to widen the gap. “That’s what Aizen called it. I always thought he was just talking me up, like the decoy he meant for me to be. I didn’t realise he meant it until Grimmjow—until I—” Her shoulders were jumping with each hitching breath. She looked like she was on the verge of a panic attack. White was showing all the way around her eyes. “I’m sorry, Kurosaki-kun. I thought he was going to hurt me. I just wanted him to leave, with all my heart.” Her gaze fell to his hand, where the hair clips sat gleaming innocently. She looked at them like they were a writhing pile of maggots. “I rejected the hollow until all that was left was the human. Kurosaki-kun, he looked so scared and confused and I  _I left him there_. What must you think of me? What kind of coward? What kind of monster?”

Okay, she was definitely freaking out. Ichigo was freaking out. Shoving the rikka into the pocket of his jeans, he took advantage of her fragile mental state to shove the door open and practically shoulder-check her back into her apartment. If her neighbours were any sort of nosy they’d have heard at least half of that.

When Ichigo had arrived there he’d expected a half-hour at most and they’d be okay again. He’d get the full story, Inoue would admit she’d overdone it a little, he’d explain to her the results and they’d both be able to process it all afterwards. He’d left his entire afternoon open to feel unsettled and overly forgiving about the entire thing, despite knowing it wasn’t done on purpose. Knowing the only one done wrong by it all was himself, and he couldn’t even be mad about it.

Instead, he had Inoue looking like she was two steps from a breakdown, terrified and trying to give him her hairpins like they were a live grenade instead of the golden source of a power that had saved his life countless times. Something worse had happened than just Grimmjow’s reversion. Her powers had surged forward, developed in a way nobody had really tested before.

Then it hit him.

With proper training, Inoue would be able to undo hollowfication. That could have massive implications for the visored. Shinji. Hiyori. And the others. She could restore them in a way Urahara had never managed. Take them back so far they returned to their pure shinigami forms. But instead of being amazed with herself, proud of herself, she was standing there with tear-tracks drying on her cheeks, looking up at him like she was the worst person on the planet. Like she expected him to hate her.

Ichigo was the one who should feel like the worst fucking person on the planet. Why the hell had he waited so long to come?

Reaching out awkwardly, he took her shoulders in a light grip. When she looked down at his hands with bleary, tired grey eyes, he squeezed a little until she looked up into his face.

“Don’t feel bad about what happened with Grimmjow,” he told her kindly. “Yeah, it was an accident. But you gave him a second chance at another life.” His mouth pulled into a wry half-smile. He knew it wasn’t quite happy, but it wasn’t sad, either. “Or, we did. You changed him into a human soul again, one I could perform konsou on. I sent him to Soul Society, and if Urahara makes good on hunting him down, I think Grimmjow is probably already on his way to the academy to begin his shinigami training.”

Inoue blinked hard at that, some of the spark coming back into her features.

“A shinigami? Grimmjow?”

“Yeah. Come to think of it, I should have probably expected he’d have enough reiryoku to be a potential.”

“Does he remember anything?”

Ichigo’s stomach pinched at the hope in her eyes. It reminded him too much of his own.

“No. He thought he was newly dead. I had to explain to him what a shinigami was.” He let go of her shoulders but had his wrists caught almost immediately, squeezed between warm hands. There was a question in Inoue’s eyes. “What is it?”

“Would you tell me, Kurosaki-kun? What he was like when you found him?” She swallowed a little. “And I should tell you—what happened that night. All of it.”

Standing there in her cramped little apartment with the afternoon sun trying to fight its way through the drawn curtains, Ichigo thought about the anxious lurch his stomach made at the request. Why he felt hesitant to talk he wasn’t exactly sure, but it tied somewhere alongside the need to tell someone who knew Grimmjow. Even if Inoue had been the reason he’d changed. Ichigo couldn’t be angry. He simply couldn’t. But the bruised feeling in his chest was something else altogether.

Glancing around the room, Ichigo nodded.

“Yeah, I’ve got some time. Why don’t you go take a shower or something? I can make some tea.” It was the nicest way he could think to tell her she looked like hell. It had the desired effect; Inoue flushed a slow, belated pink and practically jogged to the bathroom. Ichigo waited for the sound of the water running before he stared around the room in dismay, fumbling his phone to make a call.

It answered on the second ring.

“Oh, what a surprise this is! Kurosaki-san, I told you not to call this number. People will talk!”

“Shut up,” Ichigo said shortly, patting his pocket for the two hair clips. “Urahara, you were right about Inoue’s powers. She didn’t mean to do it at all and she’s freaking out.”

“Are you with her now?” The joviality had melted out of his tone. “How is she?”

“Scared. She’s given me the shun shun rikka. I think…I think she hurt herself trying to pull them out of her hair.” Chewing his lip, Ichigo walked to the window and pushed the curtains back. “She said she wanted Grimmjow to leave so badly she just blew all the hollow stuff right out of him. It shouldn’t be possible. Urahara, Soul Society will want to know.”

“Agreed,” was the calm reply. “That’s exactly why we’re not going to tell them until we can confirm whether it was an isolated incident or not. They spook easily, Kurosaki-san, and Central Forty-Six takes a dim view of anything they haven’t personally put their seal to. Inoue-san’s powers included.”

Ichigo frowned in alarm. “And Grimmjow? Did you—did you find him?” One-handed, he wandered through the house and started picking up any mess he could see. Discarded books on the sofa. A dirty plate on the floor that looked like it’d need soaking. An over-full garbage bin and a crate of recyclables that needed emptying. It seemed like Inoue had simply halted life since it happened. “Does anyone know about him?”

“Have no fear, his origin is known to our esteemed Captain-Commander.” The line crackled faintly as Urahara paused. “Fortunately for all of us, the academy doesn’t fall under Central Forty-Six’s control. Kyouraku sees only an opportunity to strengthen the shinigami ranks.” Another pause. “He’s asked after you.”

“Kyouraku?”

“Grimmjow.”

Ichigo’s heart leapt. “Really?”

“Indeed. It seems you made quite an impression.” Before Ichigo could organise his thoughts into coherent questions, Urahara moved on. “It would be prudent to allow him to assimilate for the time being. Put down roots, so to speak. In the meantime, I want you to bring Inoue-san to me. Hachigen-san, Tessai-san and myself should be enough to calm her and control her powers if they spike again, and it’s vital that I know what we’re working with here.”

Running the water in the sink to fill the teapot, phone jammed down on his shoulder, Ichigo frowned at the faucet. It made her sound like some kind of science experiment, not the scared girl he’d just sent off to wash off two weeks of terror and self-loathing.

“It might take a day or two. She’s really rattled and I don’t think she even wants to touch the rikka at the moment.”

“I have utmost faith in your ability to sway that young girl’s heart. And if all else fails, just tell her she owes you one for forcefully rewinding Grimmjow’s cassette.”

“God, you’re old.” While the water boiled, Ichigo started flipping through cabinets to find the cups. Behind him, the bathroom had gone silent with the abrupt absence of running water. “Okay, I’ve gotta go. Remember what I said about Grimmjow though. If anything happens—”

“Yes, yes, you’re listed as his next of kin. Please stop fussing. He’s at school, Kurosaki-san, not a POW camp.”

“Shut up.” Ichigo could feel his cheeks burning. “My personal experience with Soul Society is that one day everything is fine, and the next a giant eyeball monster with a bad moustache is trying to warp reality. I’m entitled to be a little paranoid.”

“So you say,” Urahara sighed. “All right, I leave it in your capable hands. Remind Inoue-san she has friends, won’t you? Particularly me, a very powerful shinigami who is in no way frightened by powers that can invert universal truths and upend the natural order. Why, I myself once invented an item of such world-shaking impossibility—”

Ichigo hung up on the history of the hougyoku and slid his phone into his back pocket before Inoue could emerge from the bathroom. That had been a hell of a conversation. Inoue wasn’t going to like it, but maybe after some tea and conversation he could coax her into at least meeting with Urahara to discuss the power spike. The alternative of hiding in the dark like she’d been doing just wasn’t acceptable. It wasn’t like her to run from a challenge, and he’d just have to tell her so. What happened hadn’t been the end of the world. Far from it.

_He’s asked after you._

Hearing the bathroom door open, Ichigo tried to focus on it and smother the surge of excitement trying to crest in his stomach.

It absolutely didn’t work.

 

* * *

  
They spent a few hours talking, going back to the very start of that day and the afternoon Inoue had been walking home, taking the river road on her way to visit the cemetery and leave some fresh flowers for Sora. She’d been dawdling about and daydreaming, she told him ruefully, smiling over her teacup. The flowering weeds by the river’s edge were pretty, but was it okay to pick them? What was the difference between a flower nobody wanted and the ones sold in the store? She asked Ichigo like he might know, but all he could do was shrug. Nothing, she told him. They were all flowers in the end, even the ugly ones people poisoned and stomped on. She’d been bending down to pick a handful when the sky ripped open above her and Grimmjow stepped out.

“I guess my head was full of flowers and gravestones when I saw him,” she said quietly. Her fingers were clamped tightly around the steaming cup in her lap. “His sword was drawn before I could even straighten up. I meant to summon a barrier around myself, and you know I haven’t had to say the words for a while now—I was more angry than scared, a-and then I was scared that I was angry and I just wanted him to  _go_." Sighing, she reached up and touched her scratched temple. “I didn’t even know what was happening first, other than a barrier sprang up around him, locking him inside. And he couldn’t break it. I don’t know which of us was more surprised. Then his mask started to crumble away.”

Ichigo tried to picture it: Grimmjow trapped inside the golden light by the riverside, fighting to break free as his hair colour ran out like ink in water, his mask disintegrating on his face. Clothes replaced by jeans and a leather jacket. Blood spilling down his face, dripping onto his torn t-shirt. And Inoue staring in appalled terror, not knowing how to undo it, with torn wildflowers scattered around her feet.

“I barely staggered home after he collapsed. My reiryoku was almost completely gone.” She sipped her tea with shaky hands. The ceramic edge of the cup clinked against her teeth. “I had enough sense to text you and rip the rikka out of my hair. Then I passed out on the floor.” Her tired eyes found a place on the carpet just inside the front door. “I’m sorry I never replied, Kurosaki-kun. I just…didn’t know what to say. I felt like I’d killed someone.” Her eyes welled up suddenly. “He looked so angry—and then, so scared. When his face blanked out it didn’t, it didn’t look like him anymore. He wasn’t someone who wanted to kill me, he was just a dead boy. He could have been my brother’s age, he—” Tears ran down her cheeks, but she wasn’t blinking them away. “He was just a dead boy, under that mask. I think, after a while, you forget that. They make it so easy to forget.”

Ichigo took her teacup before it could spill in her lap, setting it down on the coffee table. His own cup sat still and cold, untouched beside hers.

They did make it easy to forget, Ichigo thought, feeling sick and sad in the bottom of his stomach. Shinigami treated hollows like the enemy, and they were, but they’d been nothing more than lost and tormented souls first. Even the espada had been human once.

They’d all been human once.

“So you don’t even know what he was after? Did he say anything?”

Knuckling tears out of the corner of her eyes, Inoue sighed.

“He said, ‘you’re gonna find me Kurosaki Ichigo’ and swung his sword at my face.”

“So, the usual.”

“Yes.”

The usual. A weird way to describe something that’d never happen again, Ichigo thought. Then her power spike probably wasn’t directly linked to her emotions, since Grimmjow’s signature move had always been to turn up and fight him, even in the midst of other, more important battles. He couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

To distract them both, Ichigo told her his part of the story. Grimmjow having no idea who he was. His preoccupation with avoiding hell, a place he seemed certain he was going. The instant shine he took to Ichigo. How he’d explained his death. Ichigo told her everything, all the way up until the konsou that lit him up like a paper lantern, sending him on to Soul Society. By the end of it, Inoue was staring at him with wide grey eyes, her knees tucked almost up to her chin on the couch.

“Grimmjow kissed you? Grimmjow was gay this whole time? And he was shot to death? No wonder he became a hollow! Think about how lonely and angry he must have been. Murdered, alone, probably raised in some kind of homophobic environment and left thinking something was wrong with him.” Gasping a little, Inoue leaned forward, looking up into Ichigo’s face. “Do you think this is why he was so fixated on you?”

“I don’t think it works like that,” Ichigo said weakly. “I honestly think he just wanted to finish our fight. Or start a new one. Hollows aren’t supposed to really remember much of who they were before they died.”

“My brother did, in the end,” Inoue pointed out. “And Grimmjow definitely had some aspects of his old self, or he wouldn’t have remembered his name.”

She actually had a point, and it made Ichigo a little embarrassed. Grimmjow had always just wanted to fight him, back then. And even if his reverted self had kissed him, it was only to prove a point. He’d expected Ichigo to recoil in disgust and damn his eternal soul to hell. But that wasn’t his job. He was just the delivery guy, in the end. The judgement wasn’t for him to decide.

“What kind of name is Grimmjow for a person, anyway,” Ichigo muttered, scratching his cheek awkwardly. Tipping her head against the couch cushion, Inoue hummed thoughtfully.

“Well, it’s not a Japanese name, and his hair is possibly weirder than ours. Pure blond hair. European, you think? Scandinavian?”

“I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.” Fidgeting slightly, Ichigo frowned. “Urahara wants me to leave him alone for a while and not interfere while he’s training, and I get it. He’s got a whole new life, and getting away from all the hollow stuff means forgetting me too, right? He should be allowed to move on like any other hollow who was cleansed by a shinigami.”

“Except it was me,” Inoue said, and stretched her legs out until her socked feet were resting an inch from his leg. “I made him how he is. Kurosaki-kun, it’s…well, Soul Society have a lot of rules, don’t they? And they’re so busy reading up on them that sometimes they do really stupid stuff. Don’t let their red tape go and stop you doing whatever you like. It’s never stopped you before.”

Well, that was true. Really true, in fact. Ichigo had never had any problems barging into Soul Society before, but that was usually when he had the kind of good and just reason that could fire him up. Rukia’s execution, for one. End of Soul Society? Probably another one. But barging in like some kind of selfish idiot just to see Grimmjow finally living his best life, what, because he was lonely? Because he was worried? Because he wanted to see that weird little crooked smile directed at him again? No.

No, he couldn’t just force his way back in. Urahara was right.

Grimmjow deserved a new life. Shinigami student peers. A way to develop his powers for good. None of that included him.

Not a single part of that wanted or needed him. Grimmjow was only asking after him as the first shinigami he’d met.

“Will you go see Urahara tomorrow?” Ichigo asked suddenly, distracting himself. Grabbing his cup, he took a long gulp of the tepid tea. “You know he’ll help, and if he can’t, he’ll seal your rikka until he can.”

Inoue’s face fell. Again, she touched her temple, her fingertips brushing the rough edge of her healing skin. But she glanced around the apartment, from the tiny living room walls hung with bright prints to the television tucked in the corner, across to her small bookshelf of sci-fi manga and foreign cookbooks, and then finally Ichigo’s face.

“You tidied up,” she said, exhaling a small laugh through her nose. “Opened the curtains.”

“Yeah, the place smelled like a mouse cage,” he told her frankly. “You should empty your trash more when there’s food in there.”

Inoue laughed, startling them both. She laughed until her eyes watered, and just when Ichigo was worried she’d lost her mind she stretched her legs the extra few inches to shove at his leg with her feet. Grossed out, he twisted her big toe until she screamed a little.

“Ow! Ow, stop!” she yelped, half laughing and crying. “Let go! I’ll go see Urahara-san!”

“Promise,” he said threateningly, squeezing her toe harder. “Or it’s coming off!”

“I promise! I’ll see him today! Give me my rikka back!”

Grinning despite himself, Ichigo reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out her hair clips again. They just looked like regular accessories to him; something Yuzu would call pretty, something Karin would like but never wear. They thrummed with a gentle sort of dormant power, the way he’d felt Renji or Rukia’s zanpakutou flicker with life as he’d walked alongside them. Power, but not his. It didn’t speak to him. Ichigo had two voices in his head when he let them in. Two were more than enough. How did Inoue manage with six?

 _Did_  she manage?

“Thanks,” Inoue said, taking the clips from his outstretched palm. With wary, careful motions, she slid them back into place through her damp hair. Ichigo watched the vaguely complicated way she sectioned and tucked her hair back to slide them in. When she caught him watching, she smiled. “I feel more like myself now. Thank you for coming here, Kurosaki-kun, though I’m sorry you had to. I should know how to take care of myself better!” Her smile turned truly painful to witness, but Ichigo had no idea what to say in the face of it.

“Uh, sure. Don’t worry about it.”

Seemingly energised by his visit, Inoue walked him to the door after cleaning away their tea, promising again to put some shoes on and walk across to the shop to see Urahara as soon as she’d bought some groceries and eaten. Ichigo felt a little like he was caught up in a bustling whirlwind after that, all veiled babble and laughter sweeping him across the apartment and out into the hallway again.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Ichigo blurted as he said his goodbyes, feeling like she was still hiding something from him. Maybe it was nothing bad, but he wasn’t sure it was good, either.

“I’m fine, Kurosaki-kun. I mean, I will be.” When he continued to frown, Inoue flushed and fidgeted with the door handle. “Look, I still feel really badly about Grimmjow. I want to help.” Glancing up, Ichigo was surprised to see a strange resolve in her eyes. “So I’m going to. I don’t know how, but—I made him like this, didn’t I? We’ve both got him on our shoulders now.”

“Inoue, there’s no way you can make him a hollow again,” Ichigo told her, as gently as he could figure how. He didn’t think he needed to tell her she’d done enough. But she was shaking her head, long red hair swinging with the motion.

“I mean, I’ll talk to Urahara-san for you. He wants to study my power, and he’s got all sorts of connections back in Soul Society, or he wouldn’t be able to get Grimmjow found and into the academy so fast.” Nodding to herself, she smiled at Ichigo’s perplexed face. “If he wants me, he’ll have to give you something first. Even if it takes a while to get it.”

That was alarming.

“Inoue, you really don’t have—”

“Bye! Thanks for coming!” she sang brightly, and slammed the door right in his face.

“—to do that. Fuck.” Ichigo blinked at the heavy cream-painted door. “Great.”

Hearing nothing but muffled laughter from inside the apartment, he figured she was back in decent spirits, or at least enough to get her to Urahara and into some better training to work out exactly what had happened. Those guys would have barriers inside of barriers to handle whatever was going on, surely. Turning around to head home, Ichigo spotted a cracked door across the hall, where an old lady was glaring at him over her chain lock.

“Are you her brother?”

“No,” he said, confused. “I’m Ichigo.”

“Too orange,” she said disapprovingly, and snapped the door shut without another word.

“You’re a stereotype,” he told the closed door and stomped his way out of the building, heading home with every intention to slander the elderly to both of his sisters and his father.

Halfway back home, he texted Urahara a quick message to let him know how things had gone. It didn’t take long for his phone to ding.

 **[Sandal-Hat]:** _Have I told you lately that I love you?_

It was followed by five love hearts of varying colours, and then the eggplant emoji. Gross. Ichigo replied with a single skull and pocketed his phone.

That was that, then.

Good job. Pat on the back for him.

Inoue couldn’t have been serious.

 

* * *

  
It still took another six weeks before Ichigo gave up hope of hearing anything.

He told himself he was just being stupid about it. He told himself that a lot.

It just figured that the one time Grimmjow wasn’t obsessing about Ichigo, was the same time Ichigo would start obsessing about him.

In the unknowable balance of the universe, that  _would_  be the exact kind of shitty luck he’d have.

 

* * *

  
One rainy afternoon in the Kurosaki household, Isshin wandered into the living room with his nose buried in the mail.

“Bills, bills, a flyer to join Tatsuki-chan’s dojo…ooh! Ichigo, this looks like it came for you from Soul Society. I’d know that old paper anywhere.” He flung the letter like a frisbee to Ichigo, who caught it with his forehead.

“Damn it, Dad,” he muttered absently, already flipping the letter over. It was addressed to him in a weird cursive hand, the opening sealed in black wax imprinted with a camellia. Cracking it carefully, he opened the letter with a pounding heart.

Right there on Kuchiki Byakuya’s expensive thick paper, drawn in sweeps of beautiful black ink, was an enormous penis.

‘ _Come back soon! Love, Renji_ ♥’ was printed below it. Ichigo sagged back against his chair and stared at the ceiling. At his shoulder, Isshin glanced at the letter.

“Abarai really knows his anatomy. You think that’s a direct likeness?”

“I don’t know,” Ichigo groaned, flinging the letter onto the table where Karin immediately grabbed it. “Hey!”

“Whoa.” Karin blinked hard at the picture, then switched her attention to her brother. “Ichigo, is he single?”

“Karin!” Isshin yelled, right on time. “You are approximately five years old!”

The ensuing argument about the appropriate age of dating, and whether or not dating a shinigami was actually considered necrophilia, wasn’t quite enough to distract Ichigo from his disappointment.

So much for giving up on hearing anything. He’d been totally and completely accidentally suckered.

Fucking Renji.

Grumbling to himself, Ichigo got up to find a pen and paper worthy enough of the enormous set of hairy balls he was going to draw as a reply.

 

* * *

  
Four months later, in the middle of the night when it was too hot to sleep, Ichigo was sweating onto his sheets and staring up at his shitty air conditioner. If he turned it up even a single level higher it’d probably blow the fuses in the house.

“I feel like I’m breathing soup,” Kon said on the pillow beside his head. “Why the fuck can I still suffer these temperature changes when I’m a stuffed bear? What kind of monster made me?”

“Try being a human with actual sweat glands, Kon. You’ve got no room to complain.” Kon, eternally contrary, swatted his cheek in irritation.

“Don’t belittle my experience just because you have it worse! I’m valid!”

“Shut up. Go jump in the freezer if it’s that bad.” The less he had to deal with Kon’s dramatics, the better. Besides, Kon was a snuggler even in the burning still nights of late summer, and Ichigo felt convinced he was going to die of heatstroke if anything so much as touched him. Taking his suggestion as a threat, Kon shuffled away slightly but didn’t actually leave. Maybe having nobody to complain to was worse than what he was actually complaining about. Ichigo could kind of relate, so he didn’t push the point when they continued to lie there together.

“You want to like, get one of those water spray bottles tomorrow?” Ichigo asked at one point. Kon made a dying sound of agreement.

“Yes Ichigo, because our bond is so unbreakable, I will actually spritz your naked body so we both survive this summer from hell.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. I get royalties from the woman’s association for every sexy photo of you I deliver to them.”

Figured it was something like that. Ichigo couldn’t even be mad, especially since he knew all Kon’s hiding places. He was just thinking of exactly how much money he’d take as his cut of the proceeds when something rapped hard on the window beside them.

“Sweet Yamamoto’s corpse!” Kon yowled, already on the other side of the room. And halfway up the wall. “It’s a fucking burglar!”

“Burglars don’t knock,” Ichigo said, wondering if he was still sweating or if he’d actually just peed a little. Pushing the curtain out of the way, he squinted at the window.

Luminous golden eyes stared back, set over a sparkling set of white teeth. Letting out a breath, he unlatched the window, letting in the night’s heat—and Shihouin Yoruichi.

“Fuck you,” Ichigo said immediately as she rolled through the window and onto his crotch. “Get off. It’s too hot.”

“Should learn yourself some ice kidou,” she replied as she shifted back to the end of the bed, pulling a crumpled scroll out of her cleavage. “You’ve got mail.” She tossed it into his lap.

“What is it this time?” Ichigo asked as he snapped on his lamp. “I drew balls last time, so he can’t send those back. Renji’s running out of material.”

Yoruichi gave him a long look. “What kind of penpal deal do you two have?”

“A gentleman’s agreement,” Ichigo said briefly, jerking his chin at the pile of papers pinned beneath his alarm clock. Yoruichi grabbed them and rifled through the letters with slowly climbing eyebrows.

“Hey, I think this one is Byakuya,” she said, pulling out a picture of some very nicely defined asscheeks. “See that scar? I got him with a kunai when we were running around some banquet as kids. He cried. It was great.” When Kon leapt up onto her shoulder, she shifted the paper so he could get a good look. “Ichigo, hurry up and open that. I’m sweating like a sinner in church.”

“I could blow down your shirt,” Kon offered.

“Not in that body you can’t.”

Ignoring them, Ichigo turned the scroll over. No camellia seal. In fact, it didn’t look like it had come from the sixth at all. Yanking the ribbon free, he unrolled it, kicking Yoruichi away when she leaned forward to read it.

Well, it wasn’t a dick this time. In fact, there weren’t any pictures at all.

> _Shin’ou Academy would like to invite Substitute Shinigami Kurosaki Ichigo-sama to attend as a Special Proctor in this year’s annual graduation exams._
> 
> _With respect to your fine contributions to Seireitei and Soul Society, our esteemed Captain-Commander has personally selected you to oversee this year’s potential new graduates. Your duties will be foremost of a ceremonial nature only, however…_

Ichigo read the entire letter. Then read it again.

“I’m being invited to the shinigami academy.” His head jerked up. Yoruichi was giving him her best smile. “I’m—”

“He’s not graduating,” she said almost immediately. “This is for the class a few years above his. But there’s plenty of downtime between your duties and you’ll be housed nearby, so Kisuke and I thought—”

“You’re the best,” he told her, smiling so hard his entire face hurt. “Seriously. I could kiss you.”

“Me too,” Kon said fervently.

“Your emotional faces disgust me,” Yoruichi told them both with satisfaction. “Good. The date is set for a week from now, but they want you there a few days early to do the tour and all the other introductions. I’m going to be in attendance with you.”

“What? Why?”

“Eh, I hid a bottle of my grandfather’s good whisky in the walls there when I did my training.”

That didn’t sound completely right. “And?”

Yoruichi grinned. “And Soifon is doing a careers presentation on the onmitsukidou that week, so I want to heckle her from the crowd.”

Wiping sweat off his forehead, Ichigo couldn’t even disapprove. An invitation to shin’ou to oversee exams. Grimmjow would be in there somewhere, doing his training and learning the craft. Two whole weeks in Soul Society, invited and housed at Kyouraku’s personal expense. He couldn’t believe his luck.

“Thanks, Yoruichi. Urahara too. This really means a lot.”

“Ha.” She looked up from where she was flicking Kon's plastic belly button. “Don’t thank us. Orihime’s had us by the balls for months over this. It only took this long because the exam period is fixed each year during summer.” Reaching out, she patted his foot. “But we’re happy to help. Your big goofy smile makes the inevitable humiliating favours Kyouraku is going to ask completely worth it.”

Barely listening, Ichigo was already reading the letter again.

Five days.

Five days until he was back in Soul Society.

Five days until he could talk to Grimmjow again. Would he have a zanpakutou by then? Would it be the same? What kind of uniform did they wear? Would Grimmjow be pleased to see him? What kind of life did he have there? Did he have friends? Ichigo had too many questions and too long to wait for his answers. Five whole days. One hundred and twenty hours. He needed a distraction.

“Kon, get me that enormous roll of old calico Yuzu kept from craft week.”

“And the paint brushes?”

“Hell yes.”

Yoruichi frowned at them both. “What for?”

As Kon launched off the bed and bounded for the door, Ichigo folded the invitation over and grinned at her.

“Since I can deliver this one in person, Renji and the sixth division deserve a new banner, don’t you think?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprising nobody, here's some more of this thing


	3. Chapter 3

Ichigo wasn’t nervous. He wasn’t even a little bit nervous. Who’d be nervous? It was just a school.

A massive, pristine, sparkling white school employing the best educators of Seireitei. The place that had raised and taught most of the current shinigami that served in the Gotei 13. The place that was housing, raising and teaching Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez how to be a shinigami. Yeah, no big deal.

Ichigo actually felt a little like he was having his own first day at school, with no friends, no map, no idea where to go and he was wearing the wrong uniform. He was the only person in sight wearing shinigami black and a zanpakutou, let alone two. At least he’d left behind the extra outerwear, but he’d still stick out like a sore thumb the moment the faculty members came to collect him.

“On the upside, Grimmjow will be able to spot you at a hundred paces,” Yoruichi said when he mentioned it to her. She was wearing a bright orange sweater-dress and skintight black shorts underneath, which he’d already seen about five times because she kept leaning over to fix her stupid thigh-highs. “Stop fidgeting so much. It’s just a bunch of wannabe shinigami waving their asauchi around and failing at basic kidou.”

“I fail at basic kidou too, remember?” Ichigo muttered. “It’s not the general population I’m worried about. What if I’m up here and Grimmjow’s forgotten about me? Who the hell remembers their first shinigami, anyway? It’s been months.”

“You never forget your first,” Yoruichi said knowingly. Then she shrugged. “Or so I hear. I was actually born in Seireitei. Plus I’d done half my training at the Shihouin estate before I even got my stripes at the academy, so I blitzed the exams. Hah. Great memories here watching the regulars all struggle with revision while Kisuke and I were getting drunk behind the assembly hall.”

“Urahara was a silver spoon jerk like you?” Ichigo asked her, leaning against the white stone outer wall where some shade was being cast. Even in Soul Society it was hot as hell that time of year. “Was it like Mean Girls? I can see you as a Regina George type.”

“Still watching chick flicks with your sisters, Ichigo?” Yoruichi teased, but there was no malice in her voice. “No, Kisuke was as common as dishwater. He just happened to be an absolute genius.” Her golden eyes hazed with nostalgia as she relaxed against the wall beside him. “His mother was a cousin to one of the guards that patrolled the Shihouin estate. When she died, he was only supposed to be underfoot for a week or two before they found somewhere to put him.” She smiled her familiar broad, mischievous grin. “That went well.”

“So you two have been assholes since the beginning.”

“Not just assholes. We wrote the book on all the best pranks, hideouts, embarrassing secrets and most useful excuses to get you in and out of places in Shin’ou.” Her pert nose wrinkled as she laughed. “Except for a few that Shunsui and Juushirou wouldn’t give up. They were our upperclassmen, but only by a little. I still maintain that they only knew where the best glory holes after eleven pm were.”

That was the kind of information dump Ichigo knew he couldn’t parse all in one go, but he tried anyway. Urahara was a commoner genius? That part made sense. Urahara always liked the underdogs, and Yoruichi liked mischief and always had access to the best seals and toys. Their weird brand of friendly rebellion seemed to match the idea of them being beloved elite students. Ichigo let himself be distracted by the ideas that gave him, right up until two men and a woman hurried up to them. Each was dressed in stiff grey hakama and white kosode, their academy emblems threaded in silver on each breast. The two men seemed to be middle-aged, while the woman was slightly older than them both and looking about as stern as a teacher could. They practised immaculate bows before the two of them. Alarmed, Ichigo pushed away from the wall and straightened his shoulders. Yoruichi just scratched her ass a little.

“Shihouin-sama, Kurosaki-san,” the brown-haired man started, “I am Ose Tanjirou, the current acting principal of Shin’ou Academy. It truly is an honour to make your acquaintance. These are my associates and your fellow proctors of the upcoming exams.” Ose gestured to the man beside him, a pale-faced bald guy with a small dark moustache and one obviously artificial green eye gleaming behind his narrow eyeglasses. “This is megane—this is _Manase_  Doppo, and Tatsuda Yei. Both will be in attendance for the upcoming exams and will direct you accordingly. They will also act as your guides outside exam periods and can answer any questions you might have about the process.”

“Nice to meet you all,” Ichigo said, feeling about as wound up as anyone could be without snapping and killing everyone in the area. They looked like teachers. His only experience with teachers in the past was pissing them off and then escaping through windows while they were distracted. Anything else was just good grades and an air of murder when he was absent for too long. These three though, they looked almost as tense as he did. Had Yoruichi done something? “I look forward to working with you. You’ll uh, have to excuse my ignorance with a lot of this. I never received any formal training as a shinigami.”

“He’s a natural,” Yoruichi said, grabbing his ass in one monstrously strong hand and squeezing. “He comes from amazing stock.”

Tatsuda, a woman with immaculate silver hair and stern, pale eyes the colour of sword steel, flushed a dull pink as she followed Yoruichi’s arm down and drew the appropriate conclusions.

“Yes, I believe the women’s association does wax poetic on the subject at least one a month. Kurosaki-san, it would be our pleasure to bed you.”

Ichigo blinked at her. Hell, everyone blinked at her. Tatsuda’s spine shot ramrod straight.

“That’s not right! I meant—”

“She gets a little tongue-tied,” Megane—for that was all Ichigo could think of him as now—said hastily, waving his hands at them both. His fake eye was pointing somewhere east by then. “She means we’ll gratefully show you to your quarters where you can both unpack and settle in. We have two rooms available, but will you only require one?”

Yoruichi opened her mouth, but Ichigo clapped his hand over it before anything could come out.

“Two rooms, and not interconnecting please. Shihouin-sama likes to sleepwalk.” He pointedly refused to react as her tongue flicked over his sealed fingers like soap over a washboard. Oh god, it was squishy. “You know, you should probably notify her best friend in the entire world that she’s back in Soul Society. What’s her name? Short dark hair, evil smile, likes hornets?”

Yoruichi bit him so hard she almost drew blood. When she twisted his arm around behind his back Ichigo tried not to cry.

“Two rooms is fine,” she smiled lethally. Something important popped inside Ichigo’s shoulder joint.

The five of them looked at each other. Weighing, measuring. Clearly everyone had something weird to hide. Tatsuda was some kind of pervert. Megane was…well, the eye thing raised questions. Ose was probably stuck managing everyone and stressed all the time, but he’d totally called Megane out about his, well, his glasses. Also, acting principal? Where was the real one? Were they dead? _Had Ose killed them?_

“A pleasure to meet you,” they all said at once, thready and nervous and a bit sweaty. Except for Yoruichi, who was flashing lycra ass again as she fiddled with her boot zipper. Ichigo wondered how quickly he could ditch her and make a run for it.

“Could one of you give me a tour?” Ichigo asked the three of them. “If there’s time I’d like to work out my way around. This place is massive.”

Ose, Megane and Tatsuda exchanged a look that was all eyebrows and mouth twitches. Megane stepped forward and jerked his chin toward the pathway that led around the side of the entrance hall.

“I’ve got thirty minutes free to at least get you to the important places, and there’s a map of the grounds we give out to the new students I can dig up for you.” Megane scratched his moustache a little. “Tatsuda-sensei, would you show Yoru-chan to her room?”

Ichigo’s jaw dropped. Yoruichi’s eye twitched.

“Manase-sensei, you tutored me for four years more than a century ago. Enough with the Yoru-chan.”

“Allow an old teacher to keep his fond nostalgia a little longer,” Megane sighed. “It’s my only joy in life these days.”

“You’ll quit it if you want to keep your good eye in your face hole.”

Megane wilted like he’d just lost the will to live. Ichigo felt like he was witnessing rare footage of some serious blackmail material.

“Come come, Kurosaki-san. Let’s leave the very mature and grown up Shihouin-sama to find her room.” He started to amble away.

“Bye Yoru-chan,” Ichigo said smugly over his shoulder as he followed the old guy. “I’ll bring you back something cute. You want a ribbon? Pretty ball of yarn?”

“Yeah, bring me a lock of Grimmjow’s ass hair.”

Ichigo was still sniggering to himself as Megane showed him through the main entrance of the school proper, past the receiving hall and into the real sprawling community of buildings and training yards. None of them were taller than two storeys, forming long cornered buildings that doubled as walls to break up the place into blocks depending on what was taught where. It was really different to his high school, with its many floors and everybody stacked on top of each other. This was more like a miniaturised version of the Gotei 13 barracks, minus so many damn labyrinthine turns.

The grounds were completely deserted though, and after their third block of gleaming white and tidy emptiness, Ichigo asked about it.

“Certain theory lessons are usually all held at the same time to give the groundsmen time to patch up all the damage from the weekly group kidou training. The place turns into a warzone when we get a few potentials with good spiritual energy but zero control out there together.” Megane’s glass eye slid from side to side like a gyroscope as he moved. It seemed to be fixed on something. “The bell will toll soon to signal the end of class. Then you’ll see them all come running out yelling like the youthful psychopaths they are.”

“Uh-huh. So uh, what’s with your eye?” Ichigo made a wavy motion with one hand. “It seems kinda…weird. Does it see through walls? I read this book where a guy had one that could do that.”

Megane was already shaking his head. He tugged off his glasses and blinked at Ichigo. All at once the green eye swung back around and stared right at his face. Ichigo felt a push of strange energy touch his skin. Kidou?

“After I lost my eye in a hollow attack I thought it’d be a brilliant idea to make sure the artificial one could detect their presence. I’m sure you can guess how useful that is for a teacher working at Shin’ou. Mostly it just spins around on its own.” Megane slid his glasses back on and smiled politely. “I thought about having it re-designed by the twelfth division to detect truanting students, but I’d like to get some sleep in this lifetime.”

“Then it’s never—” Ichigo didn’t know how to ask. “Have you ever detected hollow presence inside the academy?”

Megane laughed. “No hollows here, Kurosaki-san. The inner grounds where all the buildings are, they’re protected by all kinds of wards. Even if I did spot one, it wouldn’t last long.” A friendly hand patted his shoulder. “We’ve been briefed on your situation. Have no fear: Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez is one hundred percent human. We had him screened as part of his induction. He knew no better when we drew his blood and scanned him from top to toe. A health check, we called it. It wasn’t so far from the truth.”

It was good news then, Ichigo thought, and didn’t feel relieved at all. One hundred percent human. Take the bad with the good, he told himself. If he had no trace of hollow in him, nobody would try to say he was a danger to Soul Society. Grimmjow was safe. Just another ordinary student, studying away to become a killer of something he used to be. Ignorant, safe and happy.

Like the arrancar he’d been had simply stopped existing.

“You on the other hand,” Megane continued as they walked, “you’ve got traces about you. Nothing much, but enough that my eye itches.”

“Yeah, that’s a long story.” It felt like the wind had gone from his sails. “Don’t worry, I won’t eat your soul, Megane.”

“Manase,” corrected Megane. “Manase-sensei.”

“Megane-sensei.”

“Close enough, Kuronagi-san.”

They toured the entire main set of buildings for a while longer, until Ichigo was pretty sure he knew where the teacher’s barracks were, along with the student dorms, the cafeteria and kitchens, the exam hall and the most frequently used classrooms and field grounds. Megane gave him the promised map, which was actually a twelve-page stapled booklet instead of the tablecloth it could potentially have been. Then like a total four-eyed asshole he muttered about the time and left Ichigo there in the centre of a random courtyard, squinting at the names of rooms he had no idea about.

He was still turning the booklet around trying to make sense of where he was when the huge bell overhead tolled deep, and from all directions academy students in red and blue and white came spilling out every door like excited ants mistaking the white stone for refined sugar.

“Lunchtiiiiiiime!” some guy with a snake tattoo on his forearm yelled joyously, hands in the air as he ran across the courtyard, trying to click his heels together in mid-air and failing. “I’ll stab anyone who gets to the crispy rice edges before I can—holy shit, it’s a shinigami.” Round brown eyes darted all over Ichigo from head to feet to hands to swords, his hasty escape coming to an abrupt stop. His black ponytail swung over his shoulder with the momentum of his halt.

Ichigo wanted to be open and friendly, like an upperclassman himself who could look cool and educated. Mostly he wanted to run for the hills. It only got worse when the entire student body in the block, some fifteen classrooms, caught a current and began to circle him widely, their impending meal forgotten. Ichigo felt like the sole drop of blood in the water. Worse, he couldn’t spot a familiar head of blond hair anywhere in the mess.

Fuck.

“Hi,” Ichigo said stiffly as the hush around him descended. “I’m—”

“Kurosaki Ichigo,” stated a girl to his left. She was almost his height, dressed in academy red and white, and her brown hair was tucked back in a functional messy knot at the base of her neck. Ichigo was pretty sure he’d never seen her before. Strands were flying in her eyes as she shouldered her way forward, a folder of notes hanging under one arm. “Shinigami substitute Kurosaki Ichigo. What are _you_ doing in Shin’ou? Are we all about to die?”

“What?” Ichigo asked, baffled. “I—maybe? I don’t know, I’m just—”

Whatever he might have said further was completely obliterated by a voice so obnoxious, so loud and pervasive in the distance that even the trainee sharks circling him were startled away.

“Oooiiiiii! Shinigamiiiiiiii!”

Ichigo’s heart jumped. He knew that voice.

Turning in the direction of the yell, his eyes scanning for its owner, Ichigo only had a moment to light up in recognition before Grimmjow—blond, tall, blue-and-white-and-grinning Grimmjow—absolutely smashed his way through the other students and launched himself straight at him.

Ichigo tensed, his hand twitching up toward his longsword on pure reflex. But those familiar blue eyes—and god, they were familiar—didn’t hold malice. Instead he felt arms shoot around his and squeeze like he was the best and last lifeline on a ship that was falling to pieces. He was pretty sure Grimmjow cut his arm on Zangetsu but it didn’t matter so much when he was being crushed like something dear. To Grimmjow. Ichigo let himself be smushed and jiggled, his face pushed over a warm, slightly perspiring shoulder dressed in clean kosode.

“The fuck took you so long?” Grimmjow said excitedly, grunting slightly with the force of his squeeze. When he pulled back, eyes alight, he kept warm palms on Ichigo’s shoulders, still in reach. “Thought you dumped me here like a stork baby.”

Struck dumb again by the sight of him, Ichigo just stared for a moment. Man, he looked good.

Instead of the angry, black leather punk full up with sad kindness and self-hatred that Ichigo had witnessed on the river road, Grimmjow in Shin’ou looked…great. Like he belonged. No blood dripped over his brow this time. His torn clothes were gone. Instead he wore the blue hakama and white kosode of Shin’ou Academy’s male student body, his blond hair still swept up in its messy array of intentional dishevelment. Clean hair, looking lighter than Ichigo ever remembered. Sunshine did all kinds of things.

Ichigo looked at him and wondered why he’d never thought much about konsou and the effect it could have on newly departed souls. Grimmjow was the poster child for change. He looked like—and he felt like—

“I came to see you,” Ichigo said, and gripped the arms holding him. He couldn’t hold down his smile. “So much for hell, huh? I was right.”

“Maybe,” Grimmjow said right back, grinning all over his face. “Maybe you had me pegged from the start. Fuck, it’s good to see you.” Ichigo didn’t fight the second crush of his arms. “Your hair always this bright? I don’t remember this much orange.”

“Sorry, Marilyn Monroe, I didn’t realise we were in auditions together.”

“I’d win the part,” Grimmjow shot back, teeth all on display in a smile Ichigo hadn’t seen since they were facing off in a desert together. It was easier to make him happy like this, he thought, and that didn’t hurt quite so much. “You feelin’ better now? You looked like lukewarm ass last time. Thought you were gonna cry or faint or something.”

“I had enough energy to send you on,” Ichigo reminded him, baring his teeth. “You didn’t even see that konsou stamp coming, did you?”

Grimmjow grabbed a handful of Ichigo’s hair and tugged it. “I didn’t know how shit worked! I thought you were gonna keep me, shinigami.” Still smiling, leaning in too far and too friendly, breath warm across Ichigo’s jaw, Grimmjow added, “Thought you were gonna be my sidekick.”

“Gotta get that badge first, greenhorn.” Ichigo didn’t shy away from the clench of fingers against his scalp. “Or are you planning to be a trainee forever and then go straight to professor?”

Blue eyes narrowed at him calculatingly, and that gaze was the best thing Ichigo had seen inside of two years. More.

“Grimmjow, what the shit are you doing?” A female voice piped offended and uncertain between them both. “Don’t you know who that _is?!_ ”

Inside the small, humid universe of their conversation, the bun-girl from before was blowing steam for reasons Ichigo couldn’t figure out.

“He’s my shinigami,” Grimmjow replied, never taking his eyes off Ichigo’s. Fingers tugged at the roots of his hair, almost on reflex. His eyes, still slightly tilted even without his estigma, were intent and fixed like a hunting cat’s. “You gonna fight me for him, Noriko? I can take you and you know it.”

“Not in hadou, you can’t,” the girl—Noriko—said. She hefted her notes. “Besides, that’s not what I meant. Congratulations, dumpster angel, you were saved by Kurosaki Ichigo: human prodigy and sole saviour of all of Soul Society. He’s basically god around here. Or did you sleep through those modern history classes?”

Grimmjow blinked at him. The blank confusion in his eyes said everything Ichigo needed to know.

“He’s a what?” Grimmjow said after a moment, his hands pulling away. “I sleep through a lot of boring shit, you know.”

Noriko shook her head at the both of them, like maybe they should have read all the notes she’d studied.

“He’s a captain-class shinigami substitute, and he’s responsible for taking down some of our greatest threats in recent history.” She tucked her folder under one arm. “Grimmjow, he saved all of Seireitei and Soul Society from the Wandenreich and its Sternritter as a result, without ever holding the official title of shinigami. He killed Yhwach, the closest thing to a usurper god this plane has ever known. He’s basically on loan from the living world and he gave enough of a shit to save ours.” Noriko scowled ferociously, her cheeks flushing bright pink. “How dare you know him without introducing us properly! I’ve subscribed to Weekly Seireitei for two fucking years now!”

Ichigo felt his cheeks heat slightly from the description the girl had obviously garnered over time from magazines and gossip. It was definitely nothing he’d ever said to anyone, even if it did make him sound great and important.

From the way Grimmjow looked at him, stunned and appreciative, Ichigo couldn’t exactly deny the statements either. Was that taking advantage?

“If you’re some kind of hero, what the hell were you doing down there picking up ghosts that night?” Grimmjow asked, half-confused and half-interested. But his eyes were cooling into something less happy, a little more polite. A sudden faint dusting of pink rose on his cheeks. “Fuck. And I kissed you.”

Ichigo’s face burned as the crowd around them roared with laughter and chatter. Noriko looked like she was about to combust with outrage on the spot. Would it be rude of him to just flash-step his way straight out of the whole congregation of them? He didn’t want to leave Grimmjow behind though. There was just too much damn noise going on.

“Move aside, maggots!” another voice shouted with the worst possible timing. Somewhere outside the crush of bodies around Ichigo, a commotion was rising from another direction. “I can smell a strawberry in here!” There was a crimson ponytail approaching through the crowd of students.

“Oh shit, it’s Renji,” Ichigo muttered. “I haven’t even hung the banner yet.”

“The lieutenant of sixth division?” Grimmjow asked, squinting over his shoulder. “Abarai Renji?”

“Why do you know his name and not mine?”

“I plan to kick his ass one day.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” Grimmjow gave a wolfish grin. “He looks fun. Come on, let’s dodge this shit. Noriko, flash your tits when he gets through.”

Rolling her eyes, Noriko passed her notes to a shorter girl beside her and actually started tugging at her kosode. Ichigo’s eyes bugged, but she was only pulling out a small camera.

“You owe me so many photoshoots for this.”

A hand yanked Ichigo’s arm hard, and then they were running through a startled cluster of students, Ichigo dragged along in Grimmjow’s laughing wake. Behind them, the white light of multiple camera flashes was going off like fireworks. Renji was screaming about his eyes. So that was what they’d meant, Ichigo thought, not even a little bit sorry to be ditching him there with Noriko the apparent shinigami fangirl. They darted between buildings, around corners and at one point, over a low wall that led into a tree-dotted training field. Grimmjow finally slowed them down at the base of a large, kidou-scarred tree. The dappled shade under it felt nice after being brutalised in the sun for so long. Sweat had turned his collar damp.

Ichigo was tugging it away from his neck when he glanced over and saw Grimmjow watching him intently.

“What?”

“Nothin’. You really some big-shot war hero? Nori wasn’t fucking with me?” Crossing his arms, Grimmjow leaned back against the rough bark of the tree. He was slightly out of breath from their escape. The hollow of his throat shone with a faint sheen of sweat. “I was sent to the afterlife by shinigami Jesus?”

Ichigo snorted loudly. “Do I look like some kind of fated saviour to you?”

“You saved me.” Blue eyes slid away to study the grass. “Couple of ways. Maybe I’d believe it.” When his gaze lifted again, it was sharp with interest. Ichigo felt pinned beneath it. “Did you really come here just to see me?”

“Yeah,” Ichigo said gamely, ignoring the twist of awkwardness in his stomach. “My friends pulled some strings to get me here, though. I’m a proctor in the graduation exams this week.” He scratched his cheek. “Which is weird if you think about it, since I’m not even a graduate of this school. You probably know more about being a shinigami than I do.”

“That so?” Grimmjow looked pretty pleased with himself. “I could tutor you. You know, for a fee. How long you here for?” While he was asking that, he reached up into the lower branches of the tree and started fishing around blindly. Ichigo watched him right up until he stuck his finger with a splinter and swore loudly.

“Two weeks, maybe. Til exams finish.” Ichigo tried not to stare as Grimmjow hoisted himself up into the tree. “Did you hide something up there?”

“I think some asshole stole my cigarettes,” he announced from somewhere up in the leaves. “I learned fire kidou off the books just so I could light them out here, and they’re fuckin’ gone.” More rustling from up in the tree. “Screw this. I’m gonna take a shit in an empty packet and leave it up here next time.” Grimmjow leaped out of the tree in one jump, landing right in front of Ichigo with a hard thud. Leaves rained down around them both in a quiet, fluttering fall of green. Slowly, he straightened.

There was a strange expression on Grimmjow’s face that Ichigo hadn’t seen before. Standing so close to him, eyes a little wider than usual, he almost looked like Ichigo had surprised him somehow. Wondering.

“Thought about apologising for that kiss, you know,” Grimmjow said, picking a leaf out of Ichigo’s hair. “But then I decided I wasn’t sorry. Think I kinda like your face, shinigami.” He hesitated a moment. “Does the konsou make you my ghost foster dad?”

Ichigo leaned out of his slight sway in horror.

“No. Fuck, I hope not.”

It was probably a terrible idea, in fact he knew it was absolutely a terrible idea, but when Grimmjow’s eyes darted down to his mouth and lingered there a moment, Ichigo decided he wouldn’t shove him away if he decided to try kissing him again. Ghost dad, what the fuck. Grimmjow the human had some weird ideas and an even weirder personality, but there was something magnetic about him, too. Maybe it was the frank appreciation in his face when he looked at Ichigo, like just his presence was enough to sustain him somehow.

“What kind of fee?” Ichigo asked suddenly, making Grimmjow blink. “For tutoring, I mean. You could show me some of the things they teach here, when I’m not needed for the exams.”

“Your girlfriend’s fingernails,” he replied instantly. Ichigo blinked. Was he…?

“I don’t have one.”

“Your boyfriend’s fingernails?”

“Nope.”

Grimmjow was starting to flush a little. “Your unrequited crush’s fingernails.”

Ichigo tried not to laugh. His heart was fucking racing.

“Keep trying.”

“Fine then.” His blue eyes glinted wickedly. “I’ll do it for another kiss. You know, since you’re so unattached and all.”

“Or I could just ask your friend Noriko,” Ichigo said immediately, his stomach bubbling with delight. Shit. Shit. “Bet she’d even do it for free.” He actually started to push away from the tree, just to tease him, but found himself pinned between two arms and a warm chest. Boxed in. Grimmjow looked a bit alarmed.

“Shit, I was kidding. Not trying to pressure you or anything—”

His lips were warm this time, Ichigo discovered, though it wasn’t really a surprise. This time everything was warm; his hands, his chest, the soft skin at the edge of his hairline when Ichigo reached up to touch him. Even the sneaky slide of tongue that crossed his searching mouth and darted away. Grimmjow crowded him against the tree and tilted his jaw with deft fingertips, kissing him back with single-minded concentration and an avid, almost desperate level of carefulness. Like he didn’t want to fuck anything up, or spook him. Ichigo thought that might have been the best part of all, but something about it made him sad, too. But they were basically strangers after all.

“Holy fucking shit, Ichigo.”

The voice cut across them like ice water, dousing the moment and all of the burgeoning warmth that had been building inside Ichigo. Mortification replaced it pretty quickly as Grimmjow yanked away to reveal Renji standing there gaping at them both. For some reason he had his hand on his sword, probably a shock reflex more than anything. He stared between the two of them like despite walking straight in on it, he still couldn’t quite figure out what the hell he’d just witnessed. Ichigo knocked his hand off his sword.

“What are you gonna do? Stab the gay away?”

“Shut up!” Renji had gone as red as his hair. It made his tattoos stand out even more. “I thought this schoolchild was attacking you.”

“Schoolchild?” Grimmjow repeated. He still looked a little dazed. “Man, what kind of kinky shit—”

“I can’t believe I’ve been sending you graphic dick art of everyone in the bathhouse for literal years, and you never once thought you could tell me you were into dudes. Real classy, Ichigo. I drew _Zaraki-taichou_ for you.” Renji put his face in his hands for a moment. “That massive dick haunts me.”

Grimmjow blinked. “How big?”

Renji made an approximate measurement with his hands. Grimmjow whistled. Ichigo frowned at it.

“Oh yeah, I remember that one. I thought you were just getting creative with the scars and stuff.”

“No, I’m pretty sure someone once tried to stab that man’s dick off,” Renji said seriously. “May they rest in peace. Anyway, that’s not the fucking point! If you’re so gay, how come you never confessed your love to me? What are you doing in the bushes with this ferret? I’m wounded, Ichigo. Wounded.”

Renji was in some kind of jealous best friend tantrum, obviously, but the ferret thing was a little harsh. Grimmjow thought so too, because he smacked Renji right in the balls with the back of his hand. Strangling out a noise of pure pain, Renji crumpled to the grass like fresh laundry.

“Fuckin’ hedgehog,” Grimmjow said darkly, kicking him in the kidneys for good measure. “Schoolkid? Ferret? Square up, matchstick, I’m gonna kick your tattooed ass across the academy.” Renji just moaned angrily into the leaves and flipped him off.

Ichigo stared at the mess of them.

“He’s going to turn you into actual paste when he gets up, you know.”

“Never let people talk shit about you, even if they can kick your ass. It’s the law of the jungle, shinigami.” Grimmjow stepped away when Renji tried to grab his ankle.

“I’d bet actual money that law is exactly why you died young.” Ichigo also stepped away when Renji tried to grab his leg. “Anyway, I guess I should get back to my room and make sure Yoruichi hasn’t gone through all my stuff.”

“Shihouin Yoruichi? The devil cat bitch?” Grimmjow’s whole body seemed to vibrate with excitement. “She’s a fuckin’ legend around here. She’s hidden so many bottles of booze in the walls of this place that if it ever caught fire it’d fuckin’ explode and take out half of Seireitei.”

“Good for her,” Ichigo said sourly. “Anyway, how come you know everyone by name and I’m still getting the shinigami treatment? Rude asshole.” He thought he was doing a pretty decent job of hiding his sulk right up until Grimmjow slung his arm around his shoulders and laughed.

“Cause there’s plenty of shinigami around here, but you’re the only one that’s mine.”

Such an easy tone, but the words punched Ichigo right in his stomach. It wasn’t even a lie, either—it was rare a spirit sent to Soul Society ever saw their shinigami again, since they were so common and Soul Society was so utterly massive. Sending Grimmjow on and finding him again had accidentally created a kind of bond between them, something new and different from all the useless memories Ichigo had of his life as an arrancar. A strange possessiveness, maybe. Grimmjow sure seemed to enjoy ‘owning’ him.

Then again, maybe he wasn’t so different to the past, after all. He still picked fights and insulted people like he used to, still had that same biting way of speaking to others. Sharp blue eyes that looked into a person, not just at them. Ichigo remembered those things, and they were all still there. There was just…more, and less. Less killer instinct, less bitterness and rage. In its place there was an easy camaraderie and a casual kind of affection, though it seemed to be reserved for a really select few.

And Ichigo was one of them.

“You want to get out of the academy for a few hours tonight?” Ichigo found himself asking as he watched Renji trying to struggle to his feet at last. “I could use some help with something.”

“I’m in,” Grimmjow said immediately. “What do you need?”

Ichigo’s mouth quirked a little.

“Just gotta hang some art.”

Definitely different circumstances. Different everything, really, but the gleam of wicked excitement in Grimmjow’s face as he caught Ichigo’s tone—well, some things never changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some shameless reference to [trevo's absolutely killer comic](https://murderlight.tumblr.com/post/179070625486/trevoshere-for-the-amazing-incredible) in here. noriko is 100% the chick getting her magazine stolen somewhere just after the events of this chapter. 
> 
> you guys probably already get the joke, but megane means glasses. poor megane-sensei, can't get no respect. just like renji.
> 
> update: be sure to check out trevo's [amaaaazing art of grimmjow and ichigo in this chapter!](https://murderlight.tumblr.com/post/179679757861/trevoshere-some-biiiig-spoilers-for-chapter-3)♥


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